According to the Hydrogen Council, hydrogen technologies could provide 18% of the world’s total energy needs by 2050 and may power more than 425 million vehicles worldwide by that time. This is a reason to explore hydrogen’s impact on the energy transition, as well as its wider potential across APAC.

This article was originally published as part of the PEI print edition in 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020. 
Read the full PEI section, the full combined digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

Hydrogen technology typically comes in three main colours, namely: Green hydrogen, which is produced from water electrolysis and renewable energy and is carbon neutral; Blue hydrogen, which incorporates carbon capture and storage into the steam methane reformation processes, reducing carbon emissions; and Brown hydrogen, which is produced from fossil fuels and accounts for around 95% of global production.

Hydrogen is considered one of the main drivers of the entire energy transition. This transition refers to the decarbonisation of energy supply and a shift from fossil to renewable energy sources. This has placed a lot of pressure on the power system from both the generation and demand sides, as grids that were designed decades ago simply can’t cope with the variability of inputs from different sources. The solution to that pressure is flexibility and hydrogen is generally seen as a likely source of flexibility for the whole electricity system.

Hydrogen use cases

Hydrogen has a multitude of uses even though some argue that it will take many years before the power source becomes economically viable at scale.

Hydrogen is converted quite easily to and from electricity and it can be stored for long periods with minimal losses. It plays a prominent role in the Asia Pacific region as

ࢀ¢ industrial feedstock ” hydrogen is used to produce industrial products such as ammonia, important for the farming and mining sectors, especially in Australia;

ࢀ¢ grid stabiliser ” hydrogen electrolysers can ramp up and down their load to match the output of renewable energy like wind and solar;

ࢀ¢ transport fuel ” hydrogen fuel cells offer an alternative to batteries for powering larger electric motors;

ࢀ¢ power generation ” hydrogen can be fed through a gas turbine or fuel cell to generate electricity.

The use of hydrogen engines is becoming more popular, with dual-fuel engines allowing the use of hydrogen with natural gas, some engines accommodating up to 25% hydrogen. Increasingly, we also see the use of hydrogen buses and electric vehicles which now have greater range and coverage. In the maritime space, hydrogen is becoming a niche product with engines and vessels geared to decarbonizing the shipping sector.

From an Australian perspective, hydrogen’s domestic applications have been especially prominent in blending into natural gas networks. The fuel source is expediting the region’s decarbonisation and the country has done well to adopt a systemic approach to building hydrogen projects at scale.

APAC’s journey

All countries within the APAC region share the same objective when it comes to hydrogen, which is to complement the electricity network and accelerate the energy transition agenda.

The technology journey started in 2018 when significant amounts of funding were made available for research and development. This was followed by many discussions with focus groups and a variety of stakeholders, to educate and ensure buy-in from the market. Subsequently, in 2019, Australia set up a Clean Energy Innovation Hub, which invited participation from investors like Toyota with its advanced fuel cell technology. Siemens has pledged 5GW of renewables development in Western Australia, providing the scale for green hydrogen.

This started a process resulting in many policy and practical developments to secure hydrogen’s future. For example, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan and Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Hiroshi Kajiyama, signed a Joint Statement on Cooperation on hydrogen and fuel cells to demonstrate a commitment to cooperating on the deployment of hydrogen.

Also, in Australia, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation launched a $300 million Advancing Hydrogen Fund, designed to support the growth of a clean, innovative, safe and competitive Australian hydrogen industry. The grant programme aims to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of hydrogen production at large-scale using electrolysis.

Finally, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) together with the Australian Government announced $1.28 million in funding, for the establishment of the Australian Hydrogen Centre. The project will investigate blending hydrogen into existing natural gas pipelines in South Australia and Victoria. Also, $995,000 in funding was granted to Yara Pilbara Fertilisers Pty Ltd to support a feasibility study for the production of renewable hydrogen and ammonia for fertiliser production in Western Australia’s Pilbara mining region.

China shows great potential for market growth, especially as increased use of renewables has led to greater grid instability. In Thailand, hybrid systems have become more popular, encouraged by policy reform. Centralised generation is mixed with smart distributed generation which presents a large renewable hydrogen market. Furthermore, the Thai government is encouraging electric transport, which opens up the market for hydrogen fuel cells.

Decarbonisation is complex and achieving a transformed energy system will require a variety of solutions.

There are instances where blue hydrogen makes perfect sense, together with carbon capture with storage. In other instances, green hydrogen will work best, driving down costs through the use of electrolysers.

It boils down to minimising intermittency and cost while maximising flexibility and adopting the business models to accommodate these system changes.

In terms of market opportunities, Australia presents a hub for renewable hydrogen and blue hydrogen, due to the active mining, agriculture and ammonia sectors. It’s about finding the right investment opportunity.

Market hindrances

Lack of policy ” The use of hydrogen can be empowered by government policy encouraging generation and effective transportation.

Transportation ” Transporting hydrogen between countries is expensive and challenging. There is currently only one vessel in the world that can transport hydrogen, with a capacity of 170 tons.

DNV GL is working on several concept designs for vessels able to transfer more than 500 tons of hydrogen.

Cost ” Hydrogen storage is costly and possibly the fuel’s greatest criticism. The use of electrolysis and alkaline neutralizers at scale will drive down cost. However, it will be almost a decade before we see true commercial viability. Using a levelised cost approach that includes investments, fuel and carbon costs is preferable.

What’s next

Hydrogen will have a significant role to play in the energy market, particularly given its diverse uses and applications.

It is likely to be some time before hydrogen becomes a powerhouse in the energy market. However, it’s clear that with a collaborative approach to market development, the technological advances that are currently taking place in the renewable energy sector, and the reduced costs of producing green energy, hydrogen will be commercially viable in next to no time.

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We live in a digitised world in which each of us every day sits amid hundreds if not thousands of data points.

This article was originally published as part of the PEI print edition in 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020. 
Read the full PEI section, the full combined digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

“The world is becoming more connected due to digitalisation every minute of the day,” says Terry Knight, of Nexus Controls. “These connections provide the data and asset visibility to make better decisions that we could only dream about a few years ago.” Yet Knight is acutely aware that “at the same time, these connections can increase our vulnerability to a cyberattack”.

Nexus Controls ” a Baker Hughes business ” has been at the forefront of control solutions long before anyone thought up the term ‘digital transformation’.

Knight says that there are two key shifts that digitalisation is driving: the first with regard to an aging workforce and the second around industrial cybersecurity for the operational technology network.

Nexus Controls has tackled both these trends head-on. “There has been a growing shift in the workforce to become more of a ‘digital first’ population,” says Knight, adding that this pressure comes in tandem with the retirement of an increasing number of the so-called ‘aging’ workforce.

Knight says that Nexus Controls has harnessed that “institutional knowledge and it has influenced our development of the Nexus OnCore platform. We used this tremendous experience base to simplify our Human Machine Interface and make it extremely intuitive, so that as organisations that hire younger, lesser experienced staff, we can learn the product rapidly and become productive in less time than would be possible using older generation control systems.”

And the company has stayed ahead of the curve as the likes of wireless technology, the Cloud and the Internet of Things have become mainstream.

Improving efficiency

“The Industrial Internet of Things has forced us to take another look at the way customers want to utilise their control system to manage plant operations,” he explains.

“Customers are no longer looking just for access to big data and data aggregation, but are looking for outcomes or recommendations based on the data to improve their overall efficiency.” As a result, he says, Nexus Controls has expanded its product capability. “Our Nexus OnCore Control System supports ‘Edge devices’ including IIoT devices to securely support the acquisition and analysis of the data, as well as remote monitoring capability for customers who want to consolidate expertise in different geographic locations.” He says that as customers drive to reduce training costs and the number of operators in their facilities, Nexus Controls has continued to adapt its software platforms to be easier to use and navigate.

“Our HMI screens have been designed to improve decision making speed and reduce unnecessary information for the operators.” He adds that as a global company, Nexus Controls is frequently requested to leverage new cybersecurity software platforms. “We can move faster because of our expansive, best-in-class, cybersecurity partner ecosystem. In most cases, we have already performed some sort of validation with new cybersecurity software platforms.”

Of course cybersecurity is often inextricably linked with the Cloud?

“Depending on the customer, cybersecurity can be top of mind when determining whether a cloud or on-premise solution fits the operation,” says Knight.

“Many customers are starting to become more comfortable with sharing information with an external server, and for those customers we can supply hardware that facilitates that data transfer as well as provide the necessary cybersecurity protection to do the transfer securely.

“For other customers who are not comfortable with the transmission of their data to the cloud, we can also provide on-premise solutions, such as our Nexus OTArmor industrial cybersecurity solution or our Nexus OnCore OptimumC data historian, that can handle data aggregation and analysis. We also support data transfer to other third-party data historians.”

Wireless technology

Knight says that wireless technology “is a topic of conversation with customers who operate many disparate sites that need to regularly communicate, such as in upstream oil & gas”.

He explains that for many customers “the challenge isn’t so much in the hardware to perform the communication, but in the availability of the technology, whether it is via satellite or broadband communication”.

In these cases, Knight stresses that the Nexus OnCore Control System “can integrate with many wireless technologies”.

He adds that the Nexus OnCore Control System supports secure remote management, as well as a Managed Services offering to securely support remote working ” critical in working-from-home environments and situations.

“In addition, we can fill critical, but often common, cybersecurity expertise gaps, through our Nexus OTArmor Managed Security and Incident Response services”.

Knight states that the Nexus OnCore Controls System “is by far the most popular control system platform due to its nextgeneration capabilities, its cost effectiveness, its intuitive design making it extremely easy to learn, deploy and use ” and finally it is inexpensive to purchase”.

He adds that industrial cybersecurity “is a rare skill set and we believe we already are the premier industrial cybersecurity provider, enabling our customers to securely realize the benefits of digital transformation”.

This enviable position has come about, he says, because of “our deep knowledge of industrial machinery and our asset-agnostic approach towards cybersecurity, which allows us to scale the way our customers wish, protecting multi-site and plant wide”.

Remote connectivity

With developments in all of these technology trends, I wonder which of them are customers asking about the most?

“Remote connectivity has really come to the forefront,” says Knight. “With the global pandemic, customers are coming to us looking for solutions that help them maintain continuity of their operation using remote technology.

“We are fortunate to be in place where we can provide several solutions to help customers effectively utilise remote technology. This could be anything from secure user access to HMIs and control systems to remote diagnostics to assist with troubleshooting and maintenance.” He adds that customers are looking to Nexus Controls for solutions to “how to leverage plant data to drive improvements ” and how to do it in a cyber-secure way”.

“For instance, if we give them access to operational data on their wireless tablet, what are we doing to make certain that data is safe and secure? So, data analytics with a cyber-secure wrapping is a big concern.”

Cybersecurity rose to the top of the news agenda in May when President Trump signed an executive order intended to boost protection for US essential services in case of a cyberattack that results in “catastrophic regional or national effects on public health or safety, economic security, or national security”.

Knight highlights that Nexus Controls has 12 years’ worth of comprehensive cybersecurity solutions” to handle the challenges that will come on the back of the executive order.

Those 12 years equate to three million hours of operational cybersecurity protection in oil & gas, renewables and power generation.

“We are well-equipped to help our customers’ security posture, achieve greater visibility and protection of critical assets, and support compliance with regulatory and internal cybersecurity policies.” He says the Nexus Controls’ cybersecurity approach “aligns with our customers’ industrial missions of safety first, zero unplanned downtime, and operational efficiency”.

“Many industrial applications require the highest levels of adherence to industry regulations. Our team of cybersecurity experts is well-versed in designing solutions that meet cybersecurity regulatory compliance standards across the globe.” And he adds that the company has a “secure-by-design philosophy” which “encompasses security strategies throughout every stage of the solution lifecycle”.

Strategic partners

Knight also explains that Nexus Controls partners with top tier cybersecurity companies as resellers, a strategy he describes as vital.

“Industrial operations have long-term lifecycles measured in decades ” very different from an IT lifecycele. Our cybersecurity solutions offer long-term dependablity, flexibility, configurability, for meaningful ROI and protection of critical assets over the many short-lived point solutions found on the market today.

“With this in mind, all of our partners are strategically chosen so that we provide the solutions required by our customers that have a long plant lifecycle in mind.” Knight says that the controls market “is in a state of technological evolution and in application development into diverse industry verticals, expanding from the traditional markets of power and oil & gas”.

On top of this, he forecasts that in coming years the controls market “will evolve into a more secure, interoperable, standardsbased architecture that will allow customers to choose the components that best meet their unique needs from across multiple vendors and integrate these components into one seamless ecosystem”.

In this new world, he stresses that control vendors “will need to focus on differentiation through continued ease of use as well as offering software and services that provide compelling value based on individual and aggregate analysis of customer generated data”.

He is also witnessing distinct trends in the aftermarket for controls. “The future aftermarket for controls is focused on empowering customers in whatever ways best meet their specific needs”.

For some customers, he explains, this means providing them with the tools and services to allow them to perform their own maintenance and lifecycle activities.

For others it means handling their maintenance and lifecycle activities for them, so that they can focus completely on the core competencies required for optimizing their production.

“At Nexus Controls, we aim to provide services to meet customers on both ends of this spectrum ” as well as the many areas in between.”

Interested to learn more? With the acceleration of remote operations, digital transformation initiatives, and the convergence of IT/OT, assessing your plant network for vulnerabilities is a critical step to lower operational risk and develop a roadmap to ensure your plant is protected.
Watch an interactive session where three experts tackle this topic.

The post The first and last line of defence appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Routine maintenance is essential for all pieces of rotating equipment, but steam turbines are far from small, making them difficult to transport to a workshop for repairs.

This is especially true of geothermal steam turbines. And a further complication for engineers is that geothermal sites are often located in areas that are difficult to access.

This article was originally published as part of the PEI print edition in 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020. 
Read the full PEI section, the full combined digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

This perfect storm of challenges was realised recently when a steam turbine needed an onsite overhaul in a power plant in a mountainous area 780 meters above sea level in Indonesia where access was restricted to narrow roads.

The repair work was important, not just for the plant itself but for Indonesia’s wider energy mix. Thanks to its volcanic geography, the country has the largest reserves of geothermal energy in the world and the government is keen to tap into them to fulfil its renewable energy ambitions.

Indonesia is currently a net importer of oil and continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels for power generation. Of the total installed national power capacity at the end of last year, 88% was sourced from fossil fuels while 12% came from renewables. Indonesia has almost 2 GW of installed geothermal power and plans to develop an additional 4.6 GW to help meet the government’s renewables target.

Last year, the World Bank handed Indonesia a $150 million loan to scale up investments in geothermal energy, and that funding was accompanied by $127.5 million in grants from the Green Climate Fund and the Clean Technology Fund.

“Indonesia’s geothermal sector has vast potential and our current installed geothermal power capacity is already the second-largest in the world,” says the country’s finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

She said developing the geothermal sector “is an integral part of Indonesia’s overall energy security, as well as making us less dependent on imported fuels.”

The government has a target of 23% of renewables in its energy mix by 2025 and it is estimated that this will require contributions from geothermal development of about 7% ” the equivalent of 7000 MW. While unlocking the full potential of Indonesia’s geothermal reserves will be key in the next five years, there is equal importance attached to ensuring that those geothermal plants already operational are boosting their reliability with regular maintenance.

Which brings us back to 780 meters above sea level and the onsite overhaul of the steam turbine. The work was contracted to Swiss engineering firm Sulzer, which at the end of last year opened a new service centre in Balikpapan, Indonesia ” its 20th such facility in the Asia-Pacific.

The company’s Indonesia field engineer Kusno Baryadi explains: “Geothermal steam turbines operate in a particularly challenging environment, where chemical erosion can have a detrimental effect on their performance. To ensure their continued reliability and efficiency, steam turbines should be overhauled every four to five years.”

Baryadi said that sending the steam turbine rotor in this particular case to the company’s workshop was “quite risky due to the power plant’s remote location and unsuitable roads.” It was therefore decided to perform the overhaul and repair on site, which he added would also “achieve a considerable saving in downtime for the turbine, which minimizes costs associated with the refurbishment project.”

Baryadi stresses that “effective planning is essential to complete such a project on time.” Firstly, a 45-day maintenance window was established. Before the generator was taken offline Sulzer’s engineers worked with staff at the plant to organize the most effective method of completing the work.

Sulzer’s Indonesia team have developed mobile repair equipment that consists of a complete set of portable tools including lathes, balancing machines and welding equipment that can be swiftly mobilized.

Baryadi says this reduces transportation costs for the customer “as well as potential rotor damage risk, which means insurance costs are also minimized.”

All the spare parts were assembled along with the mobile machine tools and balancing equipment and packed into four trucks for transport to the plant. Once the convoy arrived, the lathe and balancing machine were the first to be set up, while the rest of the team started to disassemble the upper casing of the turbine.

Once the rotor was removed from the casing it was set up on the lathe, where the dimensional inspection, runout checks and non-destructive testing could be performed.

Part of this inspection showed that the L-0 and L-1 blades would need to have their erosion shields replaced, which would be possible as their design allows them to be brazed into position.

Erosion shields are typically attached on the leading edges of steam turbine blades in the final rows of the low-pressure section that protect the airfoils from erosion. They reduce wear on the blades caused by cavitation erosion from condensed water particles in the steam.

For repairs where only the original erosion shield has been worn and not the blade material, Baryadi explains that the first step is to remove what remains of the erosion shields, which are typically made of cobalt base material. Having sand-blasted and cleaned the blade recess, a replacement can be installed using a special jig and heating elements. The specific pressure and temperature applied during the installation process is determined by the bonding material in use.

The Indonesia inspection also revealed that the labyrinth seal strips needed replacing on one turbine-side stage and four generator-side stages. All of these seals and the erosion shields underwent further non-destructive testing procedures to ensure that all replacement parts conformed with required specifications.

With all the repairs complete, the final low-speed balancing of the rotor was performed and the turbine reassembled, before being recommissioned and put back into service. The temperature and vibration sensors all indicated values within the specifications recommended by the original equipment manufacturer.

The overhaul was completed within the 45-day maintenance window organized by the power plant and resulted in no unplanned losses.

The post Building a head of steam appeared first on Power Engineering International.

They were launched by Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson and Executive Vice-President for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, who said that he believed both strategies were “crucial for our Green Deal.”

This article was originally published as part of the PEI print edition in 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020. 
Read the full PEI section, the full combined digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

“They are ambitious, they are necessaryࢀ¦ and they put us firmly on a path towards climate neutrality.”

He added that they would also allow the EU to “retain global leadership in cleantech” and put climate action at the heart of Europe’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Green Deal remains our compass throughout this recovery,” he stressed.

And he added that the two new strategies were vital if Europe had any realistic hope of hitting its target of being climate neutral by 2050.

Timmermans said the hydrogen strategy is designed to spotlight how ” with the right investments, regulation, market creation and research and innovation ” hydrogen can help decarbonise industry, transport, power generation and buildings across Europe.

The EC believes that investment in hydrogen “will foster sustainable growth and jobs, which will be critical in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.”

It notes that Europe “is highly competitive in clean hydrogen technologies manufacturing and is well positioned to benefit from a global development of clean hydrogen as an energy carrier.” The EC suggests that cumulative investments in renewable hydrogen in Europe could hit €470 billion by 2050, and adds that “the emergence of a hydrogen value chain serving a multitude of industrial sectors and other end uses could employ up to one million people, directly or indirectly.” But the new strategy document highlights that “deploying hydrogen in Europe faces important challenges that neither the private sector nor Member States can address alone.”

“Driving hydrogen development past the tipping point needs critical mass in investment, an enabling regulatory framework, new lead markets, sustained research and innovation into breakthrough technologies and for bringing new solutions to the market, a large-scale infrastructure network that only the EU and the single market can offer, and cooperation with third-country partners.” The strategy is certainly ambitious: between now and 2024 it intends to support the installation of at least 6 GW of clean hydrogen electrolysers in the EU, and the production of up to one million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.

Then from 2025 to 2030, it envisions hydrogen becoming “an intrinsic part of our integrated energy system, with at least 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolysers and the production of up to ten million tonnes of renewable hydrogen in the EU. 2050, renewable hydrogen technologies “should reach maturity and be deployed at large scale across all hard-to decarbonise sectors.”

To help deliver on the strategy, the EC launched a European Clean Hydrogen Alliance which will include national and regional ministers and the European Investment Bank, as well as major players from the power sector, such as Austrian utility Verbund. Its chief executive Wolfgang Anzengruber said: “We believe in the potential of large-scale renewable hydrogen production in Europe. The industry stands ready to deliver on this historic opportunity for Europe to take a technological leadership role.” Also part of the alliance is French multinational tyre manufacturer Michelin.

Chief executive Florent Menegaux said: “Hydrogen is a perfect solution for long-haul, heavy-duty and commercial vehicles. The extensive development of clean hydrogen corridors and ecosystems will be a huge step towards sustainable mobility, with significant environmental and economic benefits.”

Timmermans said that the alliance would build up an investment pipeline for scaled up production and support demand for clean hydrogen in the EU.

“Clean hydrogen is key for a strong, competitive and carbon-free economy,” he said, adding that Europe was “leading the world in this technologyࢀ¦ but we need to make an extra effort to stay ahead because the rest of the world is catching up.”

Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said: “With 75% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from energy, we need a paradigm shift to reach our 2030 and 2050 targets. The EU’s energy system has to become better integrated, more flexible and able to accommodate the cleanest and most cost-effective solutions.

“Hydrogen will play a key role in this, as falling renewable energy prices and continuous innovation make it a viable solution for a climate-neutral economy.” Players in the European energy sector welcomed both strategies. Eurogas secretary-general James Watson said that while “there are many different pathways to achieve an energy system integration for a climate-neutral Europeࢀ¦” the Commission strategies “confirm that we will need gaseous molecules to deliver climate neutrality in the most affordable and cost-effective way for EU citizens.”

“This is going to be a step change for the gas sector and one which we [Eurogas] are embracing and leading,” he added.

“We have already called for targets for renewable and decarbonised gas to be set for 2030.

“Ramping up hydrogen is a future-proof solution to achieve climate neutrality and provide Europeans with millions of jobs in clean technologies made in Europe.”

Watson said the European Hydrogen Alliance will make sure that all clean hydrogen technologies ” carbon capture and storage, pyrolysis, electrolysers ” are used to kick-start the hydrogen economy.

And he added that investing in carbon capture and storage “is a no-regrets option that can deliver the foundations of the future hydrogen market without delay. We also need mass deployment of renewable electricity, coupled with the increased speed of coal retirement in the electricity sector, to deliver renewable hydrogen and quick carbon reductions.”

Kristian Ruby, secretary-general of Eurelectric, said that the integration strategy “spells out direct electrification as a key principle to reach carbon neutrality.”

“Creating synergies between siloed structures of the energy system is essential for building a more efficient, flexible and decarbonised system.”

And while Ruby backs widespread electrification, he said that hydrogen “would play an important complementary role in the decarbonisation of energy intensive sectors.”

He said the plan to establish a clean hydrogen value chain was comprehensive yet cautioned that “while implementing it, it remains critical to ensure that due attention is given to direct electrification measures, as they will be the most efficient and account for the larger CO2 abatement effects in the short and medium term.”

Maria Joàƒ£o Duarte, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems’ representative to the EU Institutions, said: “there are so many reasons to be excited about hydrogen in Europe right now.”

She said it is “pretty much on everyone’s agenda, as there is an overwhelming agreement among players on the importance of hydrogen in a carbon neutral Europe. More and more European countries have hydrogen on their political agenda.”

But she stressed that “Europe is only one piece of the puzzle ” there is global consensus on hydrogen’s importance.” She said the test projects showing the most promising signs of full-scale development are those involving complex supply chains.

“The projects which look at scaling-up production alongside transport, storage and consumption of hydrogen have the most potential.”

The post Europe hits the hy-road appeared first on Power Engineering International.

The Miluo western 220kV substation is the organization’s CNY 120 million ($17 million) pilot initiative and the first substation to use 3D digital modelling throughout construction, operations, and maintenance.

This article was originally published as part of the PEI print edition in 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020. 
Read the full PEI section, the full combined digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

Located in Hubei province, the substation will significantly improve the grid structure in the Miluo area, covering 16km2 and enhancing the reliability of power supplied to 160,000 residents.

POWERCHINA Hubei Electric Engineering (HEEC) won a bid as lead designer to implement 3D collaborative modelling in accordance with the State Grid’s design standards and to deliver digital twins to the owner.

The project presented numerous site challenges, including a complex surrounding landscape lined with large residential houses that restricted the layout of the substation facility.

To accommodate the compressed footprint, the spatial location of each building structures, electrical equipment, and cable trenches ” required multiple contributing engineering disciplines in close collaboration.

Working against an aggressive 10-month schedule to complete construction, HEEC had to effectively coordinate with each construction organization to safely deliver the project on time.

Faced with these design and construction difficulties, the team required integrated building information modelling, reality modelling and simulation and visualization technology to apply 3D digital standards and achieve full lifecycle digitalization. To accurately plan the project, HEEC used oblique photogrammetry, captured using an unmanned aerial vehicle, and ContextCapture, reality modelling software from US headquartered Bentley, to survey the substation site and generate a 3D reality mesh.

Using geospatial reality modelling helped establish a digital context for the project, visually capturing landscape, vegetation, rivers, lakes, roads, and houses surrounding the project area to support substation site and corridor planning.

“ContextCapture generates high-precision reality models automatically and can visually reflect various information to help make decisions,” said Wei Wang, executive assistant, senior engineering, at HEEC.

He added that compared to traditional 2D drawings, using the reality modelling application provided reliable environmental information to rationalize the substation layout amid the constrained site.

HEEC relied on the accuracy of the 3D reality model to visualize and analyze the existing conditions, optimizing the incoming and outgoing corridor lines while also minimizing impact on agricultural land and houses bordering the substation.

Using the reality mesh enabled the team to avoid demolishing six houses and reduce the area occupied by the substation by 22%, saving 0.94 hectares when compared to the original design scheme. As a result, HEEC saved CNY 2.5 million through the optimal substation layout and reduced earthworks for bored and cast-in-place piles by 63m3 to save an additional CNY 90,000.

The compressed substation layout, while optimal from an environmental and residential perspective, required multiple engineering disciplines to collaborate to avoid collisions in the tight space.

The electrical and civil engineering groups shared data and information through 3D models in discipline-specific digital applications that were then imported into the comprehensive substation model available within the connected data environment.

Integrating structural design software and analysis helped refine the architectural model to achieve less than 1% deviation in accuracy between the designed and actual steel material, optimizing the steel frame with just eight tonnes of steel to save CNY 120,000 in material costs.

By establishing collaborative 3D design workflows within the connected data environment, the team created an optimal engineering model, which identified and resolved clashes in advance, resulting in zero changes during underground construction. “Through comprehensive collision inspection of the underground facilities, design errors are found in advance and about 30 construction reworks are reduced,” says Wang.

The engineering design model, combined with the reality model, forms the substation digital twin where construction drawings and material quantities can automatically be extracted.

HEEC explored various methods to use the 3D design model to digitally guide construction. The team relied on mobile applications to enable on-site construction staff to access and check the substation model and associated drawings.

Various forms of data and dynamic simulation were integrated, allowing construction crews to visualize equipment installation and better understand the construction process.

Working in a connected data environment with these mobile digital solutions provided on-site workers with easy access to the 3D design model, improving workflow and communication while effectively guiding construction to save 15 working days.

Integrating 4D construction sequencing provided visual coordination and simulation of the construction progress to track and manage the construction schedule.

Using a dynamic construction simulation application, HEEC performed a comparative analysis between the planned construction schedule and actual on-site process to effectively manage changes in real time.

“We can systematically and comprehensively manage and control the progress of the project, analyzing the progress deviation at all times to control the possible risks,” explains Wang.

Full construction digitalization of the Miluo substation was completed 30 days ahead of schedule and creating a digital twin of the substation reduced total investment of the project by CNY 6.3 million.

As China’s first substation project to use 3D design standards and digital twins during construction, HEEC has set a blueprint for the future. “The pilot program implemented standards during construction that helped to improve design quality and set a great example for using digital twins to support future state grid projects,” says Wang.

About the author

Amit Trehan is Industry Marketing Director, Utilities, at Bentley Systems.

The post A 3D digital first for China appeared first on Power Engineering International.

Hydrogen – the great green hope

I doubt there’s a hotter topic in the energy sector at the moment than hydrogen. And it’s a technology whose potential is acknowledged and being explored globally ” as evidenced by our coverage in this issue.

Our cover story highlights the role that it could play in the AsiaPacific, where countries across the region are pouring resources into developing next-generation technologies ” Australia alone has launched a $300 million Advancing Hydrogen Fund.

And our Europe-focused article examines how the European Commission (EC) has put hydrogen at the heart of its drive to reach net zero by 2050.

The EC believes that investment in hydrogen will foster sustainable growth and jobs, which will be critical in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

It suggests that cumulative investments in renewable hydrogen in Europe could hit €470 billion by 2050, and adds that “the emergence of a hydrogen value chain serving a multitude of industrial sectors and other end uses could employ up to one million people, directly or indirectly”.

EC executive vice-president for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, said his new hydrogen policy was “ambitious, necessary and put us firmly on a path towards climate neutrality”.

This increasing focus on hydrogen is most welcome because it acknowledges the crucial role of gas in the global energy transition. Gas is now rightly seen as the enabler of a ‘green’ future, and there are few more exciting gas developments than those happening right now in hydrogen.

For years we have labelled gas a ‘conventional’ source of power: developments in hydrogen are proving that gas is currently the most convention-busting of all generation sources.

Until next time,

Kelvin Ross

Editor, Power Engineering International

The post Power Engineering International Issue 4 2020 appeared first on Power Engineering International.

A huge amount of interest and soaring hype has developed around hydrogen, with many well-placed allies advocating for its use and former sceptics now actively supporting its potential to meet as much as a quarter of the world’s energy demand by 2050. 

Thisà‚ articleà‚ appears in the PEI print edition inà‚ 
Smart Energy International Issue 4-2020.à‚ 
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Only last week Japan’s Chiyoda Corp demonstrated the world’s first successful international hydrogen supply chain. This was followed by Equinor’s announcement of its intention to build a 600 MW auto thermal reformer (ATR) with CCS in the UK, making it the world’s first such at-scale facility. 

With the newly-launched European Hydrogen Strategy forming part of the EU Green Deal, the hydrogen hyperbole shows no sign of letting-up.

Hydrogen, of course, has been around for a long time and has been talked about extensively since hydrogen fuel cell cars in the 1980s. What is changing now is its application.

The use of hydrogen is moving away from being simply a solution to transportation peak oil and is more broadly being seen as a way of utilising our extra renewable resources and reduce GHG emissions for heating and transport.  

We at the Energy Council decided the time was right to delve into the economics of the hydrogen economy, exploring where we are at this moment and what is needed in order for hydrogen to be the saviour that so many claim it will be ” this is what we discovered when we spoke to our members.

This article is originally published on www.energycouncil.com

Moving the conversation to the green metals

Hydrogen, of course, within itself is not a single technology and our members noted that we should frame our conversations around the H2 ecosystem. Hydrogen can undoubtedly do one or two things few others can’t, and its ability to act as a vector for the hard to decarbonise parts of the economy makes it a solution we can’t ignore.

These are the areas where renewable electricity alone won’t be able to do the heavy lifting. The majority of focus exploring its use in decarbonising utility-scale heat is undoubtedly an important aspect, but in developing a demand ecosystem there may be easier wins.   

For hydrogen to scale up it needs bankable projects and that must present real mid-term investment opportunities. Iron and steel manufacturing contribute 5% of global GHG emissions and yet can be transformed on a project basis relatively quickly to green sustainable processes using hydrogen. This offers huge immediate demand and can be achieved much quicker because it relies less heavily on the pan-regional frameworks needed for hydrogen transportation and heat distribution. 

In 2023, construction will start on the HYBRIT initiative steel making plant.  Owned by SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, the facility will produce 1m t/y of iron midway through this decade. In a similar vein, German manufacturing giant Thyssenkrup has also demonstrated the ability for hydrogen to be used to fuel a steel blast furnace in its portfolio. 

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Although mainly on a micro level there are other projects expected to be commercial by 2030 and this route presents an exciting and sustainable investment opportunity. Looking further afield, a futures and spot market can be built up with long-term offtake contracts in place for chemical, steel, cement and other industrial sectors. 

It is certainly the Energy Council‘s view that organisations such as the European steel association, Eurofer, and the European ceramics industry association, Cerame-Unie, should be engaged as wholeheartedly as the pure renewables sector. Therefore the EU strategy on clean steel paper being subordinated in the EU policy timetable is a disappointing development.   

Cost and process efficiency

The cost of producing hydrogen from renewables is high today, but that is set to change. The cost of electrolysers will fall quickly as manufactures shift from the U.S and Western Europe to lower production cost regions like China, where it was noted costs of production are already around 80% lower. That is a huge move down the costs curve and makes steelmaking to be viable, as prices for renewables-based hydrogen would need to fall roughly from around €4 per kilogramme today to around €1-2 per kg according to industry insiders. 

Many European manufacturers are sceptical of such bold predictions of lower costs of electrolysers, but the Chinese manufacturing base has shown itself to be very capable of similar deflationary costs with solar modules, wind and other comparable industries such as telecom base station production. This shows that cost reduction is possible and will only accelerate as order books fill up.   

The difference to other renewables is that hydrogen is an interconnected infrastructure player, unlike say solar or offshore wind. The ecosystem can’t evolve and pivot from existing gas infrastructure on a case-by-case project basis but has to be more joined up in its planning phase. This, of course, has to be done efficiently and cost-effectively in order to get this right. 

Updating existing gas networks in Europe alone is estimated at some €120-130bn by the EU. Put simply, it is more complex than wind or solar as more than one element of the value chain will have to be replaced simultaneously, and for that, you need standardisation and cross border alignment. Government frameworks that reduce cost curves and support market dynamics are therefore essential.

Blue hydrogen and CCS 

The numbers from the likes of the IEA and BNEF are quite clear: blue hydrogen is going to be a more expensive option than green hydrogen despite being cheaper today. From a cost perspective alone, you would suspect that pure renewables would triumph, but in fact, producing enough green hydrogen to meet a growing energy demand actually provides a role for blue hydrogen. 

The sheer scale needed for green hydrogen to meet energy demands globally will make it difficult to generate enough purely from domestic renewable infrastructure. To make all hydrogen from renewables possible, we would need to create a massive amount of new infrastructure, and do it quickly.  This simply may not be possible in a post-COVID-19 world, with departments of national and regional movement fighting over ever smaller fiscal budgets. 

The use of domestic, internationally piped or even shipped blue hydrogen offers arguably a complementary solution. In particular, in places where existing natural gas infrastructure that connects to storage and industrial clusters can be repurposed, blue hydrogen and CCS can allow markets to transform to hydrogen economies quite quickly in comparison to adopting only green hydrogen and can offer energy security by ensuring domestic energy production  

Scaling blue, while investing in green, seems to be the preferred strategy for some such as the Dutch government who broadly support both technically and who are looking to scale from a 20MW electrolyser being constructed at Delfzijl to 1GW capacity of clean hydrogen by 2030. 

Meanwhile, the Dutch government is looking at repurposing gas pipelines, which offers a cost-effective solution the supports a phased build-out of a hydrogen supply chain. This seems in contrast, however, to The German National Hydrogen Strategy released in June 2020. This strategy places quite a clear emphasis on green hydrogen in its quest for 10 GW of H2 energy by 2040, shutting out some players to billions of Euros of funding facilities. 

Where are countries falling short on their hydrogen policy?

There is a need for a globally coordinated effort for hydrogen that can support the scaling up and cost reductions that are so vital. To draw a comparison, we need to feel about hydrogen in 2030 like we do today about solar or offshore wind. 

For this to happen we need a two-phase approach to building a whole new value chain, starting with a commitment from governments to an upfront subsidies scheme. This would demonstrate an investment case for a dynamic hydrogen economy. These projects need to be at a larger scale than current pilots and across multiple sectors and geographies. 

Concurrently, to unlock the potential of hydrogen, long-term policy focus needs to be on industry and not just through subsidies. It is welcome that the European Commission’s hydrogen strategy, unveiled on 8 July, confirms this as an EU ‘priority focus’. Any such approach needs to create a regulatory framework that can pull through demand for such products as green steel and fertilisers and should be coupled with stringent emission cut off dates. 

When successful, this approach can extend through to new build gas power stations and pipelines, making them future-proofed by ensuring they can be easily switched to hydrogen.  Chiyoda in Japan recently transported hydrogen by sea in the form of Methylcyclohexane, but this was only possible via the 2014 Japanese Strategic Road Map for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells.

Finally, there is a need still for cross border harmonisation around defining clean hydrogen. If this can be achieved and built alongside the development of a certificates market to build out a hydrogen trading marketplace and create liquidity in the market, hydrogen will no longer be seen as just hype. 

Working on hydrogen

The world does not have another solution to heating or heavy-duty transport at zero carbon, so we simply have to make hydrogen work. We are talking about a different type of hydrogen today to 30-50 years ago; it is green and it is captured and it is a global infrastructure play that we need to meet if we are to stay true to our commitment to reducing emissions (not just from electricity). 

As an example, the UK uses four times more gas than electricity in winter, so to simply replace all of this gas is difficult. And this scenario is similar in many countries across the globe. Our focus right now, therefore, needs to be on supporting the scale-up at an industrial level and providing end-users with clear roadmaps for how they can adapt their processes and products to use hydrogen. 

The ability to develop a commercial market for clean hydrogen by 2030, arguably needs the short-term support of larger gas players using a combination of methane pyrolysis and natural gas reformation combined with carbon capture. 

The level of support for this type of ‘clean’ energy doesn’t yet seem to be there and this presents a conundrum and a deal bottleneck for some investors in deploying capital into this market segment. Are we becoming too fixated with colour in the short-term or a future with zero GHG? Avoiding theological debates over blue hydrogen is something our investor members argued would be desirable as it offers a quicker path to making final investment decisions.

Finally, the role of organisations such as the Energy Council that look to bring people together to deliver peak performance that will help facilitate this is vital; there is no one country or company that can create an ecosystem all by themselves. Finding common answers and synergies around how to solve such issues like getting the electric and gas networks to work in unison, is vitally important if this is to work. 

More about the Energy Council

The Energy Council network is committed to getting corporates and investors in the room to ensure the continued growth of renewable energy projects and tackle the very issues being discussed. It is imperative that we foster the right environment for private institutional capital to be deployed into renewable projects. Corporates come to meet investors, and each other, through membership of the Council. Around them, investment managers of all shape and size come to meet with them to discuss ESG and overriding SRI goals. 

The post Tomorrow today? The reality of developing a global hydrogen economy appeared first on Power Engineering International.